Part 31 (1/2)
If the performance, to which all contiguous Britain intended to repair--for irrespective of the railroads, which now began sensibly to affect the communications in the North of England, steamers were chartering from every port for pa.s.sengers to the Montfort tournament within one hundred miles' distance--were equal to the preparation, the affair must be a great success. The grounds round the castle seemed to be filled every day with groups of busy persons in fanciful costume, all practising their duties and rehearsing their parts; swordsmen and bowmen, and seneschals and esquires, and grooms and pages, and heralds in tabards, and pursuivants, and banner-bearers. The splendid pavilions of the knights were now completed, and the gorgeous throne of the Queen of Beauty, surrounded by crimson galleries, tier above tier, for thousands of favoured guests, were receiving only their last stroke of magnificence. The mornings pa.s.sed in a feverish whirl of curiosity, and preparation, and excitement, and some anxiety. Then succeeded the banquet, where nearly one hundred guests were every day present; but the company were so absorbed in the impending event that none expected or required, in the evenings, any of the usual schemes or sources of amus.e.m.e.nt that abound in country houses. Comments on the morning, and plans for the morrow, engrossed all thought and conversation, and my lord's band was just a due accompaniment that filled the pauses when perplexities arrested talk, or deftly blended with some whispered phrase almost as sweet or thrilling as the notes of the cornet-a-piston.
”I owe my knighthood to you,” said Prince Florestan to Lady Roehampton, ”as I do everything in this country that is agreeable.”
”You cannot be my knight,” replied Lady Roehampton, ”because I am told I am the sovereign of all the chivalry, but you have my best wishes.”
”All that I want in life,” said the prince, ”are your good wishes.”
”I fear they are barren.”
”No, they are inspiring,” said the prince with unusual feeling. ”You brought me good fortune. From the moment I saw you, light fell upon my life.”
”Is not that an exaggerated phrase?” said Lady Roehampton with a smile, ”because I happened to get you a ticket for a masquerade.”
”I was thinking of something else,” said the prince pensively; ”but life is a masquerade; at least mine has been.”
”I think yours, sir, is a most interesting life,” said Lady Roehampton, ”and, were I you, I would not quarrel with my destiny.”
”My destiny is not fulfilled,” said the prince. ”I have never quarrelled with it, and am least disposed to do so at this moment.”
”Mr. Sidney Wilton was speaking to me very much the other day about your royal mother, sir, Queen Agrippina. She must have been fascinating.”
”I like fascinating women,” said the prince, ”but they are rare.”
”Perhaps it is better it should be so,” said Lady Roehampton, ”for they are apt--are they not?--to disturb the world.”
”I confess I like to be bewitched,” said the prince, ”and I do not care how much the world is disturbed.”
”But is not the world very well as it is?” said Lady Roehampton. ”Why should we not be happy and enjoy it?”
”I do enjoy it,” replied Prince Florestan, ”especially at Montfort Castle; I suppose there is something in the air that agrees with one.
But enjoyment of the present is consistent with objects for the future.”
”Ah! now you are thinking of your great affairs--of your kingdom. My woman's brain is not equal to that.”
”I think your brain is quite equal to kingdoms,” said the prince, with a serious expression, and speaking in even a lower voice, ”but I was not thinking of my kingdom. I leave that to fate; I believe it is destined to be mine, and therefore occasions me thought but not anxiety. I was thinking of something else than kingdoms, and of which unhappily I am not so certain--of which I am most uncertain--of which I fear I have no chance--and yet which is dearer to me than even my crown.”
”What can that be?” said Lady Roehampton, with unaffected wonderment.
”'Tis a secret of chivalry,” said Prince Florestan, ”and I must never disclose it.”
”It is a wonderful scene,” said Adriana Neuchatel to Endymion, who had been for some time conversing with her. ”I had no idea that I should be so much amused by anything in society. But then, it is so unlike anything one has ever seen.”
Mrs. Neuchatel had not accompanied her husband and her daughter to the Montfort Tournament. Mr. Neuchatel required a long holiday, and after the tournament he was to take Adriana to Scotland. Mrs. Neuchatel shut herself up at Hainault, which it seemed she had never enjoyed before.
She could hardly believe it was the same place, freed from its daily invasions by the House of Commons and the Stock Exchange. She had never lived so long without seeing an amba.s.sador or a cabinet minister, and it as quite a relief. She wandered in the gardens, and drove her pony-chair in forest glades. She missed Adriana very much, and for a few days always expected her to enter the room when the door opened; and then she sighed, and then she flew to her easel, or buried herself in some sublime cantata of her favourite master, Beethoven. Then came the most wonderful performance of the whole day, and that was the letter, never missed, to Adriana. Considering that she lived in solitude, and in a spot with which her daughter was quite familiar, it was really marvellous that the mother should every day be able to fill so many interesting and impa.s.sioned pages. But Mrs. Neuchatel was a fine penwoman; her feelings were her facts, and her ingenious observations of art and nature were her news. After the first fever of separation, reading was always a resource to her, for she was a great student. She was surrounded by all the literary journals and choice publications of Europe, and there scarcely was a branch of science and learning with which she was not sufficiently familiar to be able to comprehend the stir and progress of the European mind. Mrs. Neuchatel had contrived to get rid of the chief cook by sending him on a visit to Paris, so she could, without cavil, dine off a cutlet and seltzer-water in her boudoir. Sometimes, not merely for distraction, but more from a sense of duty, she gave festivals to her schools; and when she had lived like a princely prisoner of state alone for a month, or rather like one on a desert isle who sighs to see a sail, she would ask a great geologist and his wife to pay her a visit, or some professor, who, though himself not worth a s.h.i.+lling, had some new plans, which really sounded quite practical, for the more equal distribution of wealth.
”And who is your knight?” said Endymion.
Adriana looked distressed.
”I mean, whom do you wish to win?”